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ICT4D Week 2018

Friday, December 23, 2016

FG: Declare October national cyber awareness in Nigeria - Stakeholders

The cybersecurity stakeholders in Nigeria have urged the Federal
Government (FG) to consider the adoption of October as the National Cybersecurity
Awareness Month (NASCAM) in line with global best practices, reports ITRealms.

Some of the stakeholders who disclosed their disposition to
this novel concept at the National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NASCAM)
conference held at the Oriental Hotel, Lagos, recently, described this call as
a national priority.

They stressed that cyber security should be given additional
attention by the federal government of Nigeria going by the exponential growth
of Internet related activities in the country and the growing vulnerability of
the government, corporate and individual citizens to the threats of cyber
criminals.

In his presentation on Internet Jurisdiction: A Cath-22
Situation and the Trajectory of Nigeria’s Judicial System, Kunle Adegoke,
Managing Partner M. A. Banire and Associates said, “The evil effect of
cybercrimes can be hardly exhaustively appreciated as same may seem to be
limitless. According to a report, “Cyber-crime costs the global economy about
$445 billion every year, with the damage to business from the theft of
intellectual property exceeding the $160 billion loss to individuals from
hacking”. A 2012 report says that Nigeria lost over 2 trillion naira to
cybercrimes in 2012 and $200 million per annum. The amount of loss annually
occasioned now can be better imagined as youths today see cybercrime as an open
sesame to sudden riches.”

While commending the Nigerian government for enacting the
enabling law to deal with cyber criminality, he called for the strengthening of
the existing laws because “The computer has created a different world of cyber
existence where man can live without laws of ancient regime. The benefits of
burden of human relations have occasioned cyber-crime as well.” He expressed
concern that “it is not good for technology to run faster than law. Whenever,
technology moves faster than law, what you will have is a legal vacuum”.
Nigeria suffered this legal vacuum for a long while.”

Immediate past Director General, National Broadcasting
Commission, Emeka Mba also expressed the need for increased citizens and
government’s participation in awareness creating and pragmatic interventions in
the cyber security issues and challenges. He said that even the broadcast
industry that used to have a sense of immunity against cyber-attacks is now
more vulnerable like every other IT entities because of the convergence of
technology which has allowed for the integration of Internet Protocols in the
broadcasting industry and the emergence of Smart television sets.

He underscored his concern by citing an instance that on
April 8, 2015, hackers penetrated the French broadcaster TV5Monde, crippling
email and production facilities, hijacking social media accounts and disrupting
the transmission of 11 channels for three hours. Putting it in context, Mba
said “that Few years ago, the major head ache for a pay tv service was smart
card hacking, and piracy, today its much worse, pointing out that a new report on
Digital TV Europe showed that “Cybercriminals target broadcasters up to 1,000
times a day.”

According to him, for years the industry has been moving
away from traditional, analog audiovisual broadcasting technology towards
digital-only, network-based infrastructures. This is a logical and necessary
process for broadcast companies to keep pace with technological development,
and to benefit from the efficiencies of digital media network distribution. But
any system based on delivering digital media over the internet is potentially
vulnerable to cyber-attack from outside.

“Broadcast signal intrusion is the hijacking of broadcast
signals of radio, television stations, cable television broadcast feeds or
satellite signals. Hijacking incidents have involved local TV and radio
stations as well as cable and national networks, he stated.

President, Nigeria Internet Registration Association,
(NIRA), Reverend Sunday Afolayan, who spoke on Internet governance, highlighted
some of the issues that have made it pertinent for the Nigerian government to
speedily consider the presidential proclamation of October as the national
cyber security awareness month.

As said by him, the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT)
has led to the issue of breaches and surveillance by the Government or
Individuals “because most of our data are online,” stressing, as well that
broadband penetration is narrowing digital, physical, economic and educational
divides, due to global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth.

Afolayan noted as well that the cyber space is now a
veritable channel for the dissemination of “… propaganda to promote violence,
including radicalization, recruitment and financing organized crimes using the
Internet. Online child sexual exploitation. The internet as both tool and
object of militant protest either for liberation or for domination.”

Publisher and founder Technology Times, Shina Badaru
canvassed for a presidential amnesty for cyber criminals in order to allow
government access the potentials of the IT savvy individuals for positive
trajectories in building a wall of defence in the nation’s electronic
boundaries across the board. While saying that the nation’s conventional
security forces might have been over stretched and ill-equipped to tackle the
dynamic tactics and strategies of the cyber goons, he said that those granted
the amnesty could be converted to the nation’s strategic ‘army’ to combat the
looming threats from the new frontiers to national security.

Director General Cyber Security Challenge Nigeria, Victor
Phikparobo Idohor said cautioned that no one or organisation is immune to the
real and present danger in the cyber space. He concurred with Badaru on the
need for a dedicated law enforcement agency particularly for cyber security in
Nigeria. He stressed that the emerging threats in the cyber space is beyond
amateur hacks to the looming attacks on corporate entities and businesses.

According to him, the attacks on infrastructure presents gloomy picture of the
threats to nation at large.

Brandish Publisher, Collins Onuegbu spoke on the break away
from the silos of expert discussion on cyber security to a more inclusive
citizens’ participation at all levels.

For him, cyber security
challenge has gone beyond the experts’ enclave and should now be broken down in
the common man’s language in order to have a comprehensive frontal defeat of
the menace.